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A block of wood, or a wooden bracket, fixed to a mast or yard to support another spar attached to it. Thus, the bowsprit of a sailing vessel has a saddle attached to it to support the heel of the jib-boom, and a saddle on each lower yardarm supports the studding-sail boom in square-riggers. It is also the name of the wrought-iron fixture which in some gaff-rigged vessels holds, with the aid of a parrel, the inner end of the gaff against the mast.